When London designers Ben West and
Felix Heyes decided to create
a visual dictionary of sorts, they knew exactly where to go: Google Images.
The duo printed a 1,240-page dictionary using the first image that Google
has for 21,000 words you'd normally find inside a common desk dictionary:

“We used two PHP scripts my brother Sam wrote for us,”
says Ben about the process in an email. “The first one takes a
text list of dictionary words and downloads each image in sequence,
and the second lays them out into columns and outputs a PDF.”
The PDF was then printed into a beautiful book – handbound, thumb
indexed pages held together in a marbled paper hardcover, the golden
Google logo clearly indifferent to whatever internet horrors it may
contain.

“Conceptually it’s whatever you make of it,”
writes Ben. The sad reality of shrinking attention spans, collective
media fatigue or how an expert reference book is no match for the convenience
of Google, for example. “It’s really an unfiltered, uncritical
record of the state of human culture in 2012,” concludes Ben.
So, how are we faring? “I would estimate about half of the book
is revolting medical photos, porn, racism or bad cartoons.”